More Cash Than Ambition

Why do Celtic have so much money in the bank with so little intention to spend it on improving the playing squad?

From a business perspective, speculating to accumulate would pay dividends as the buy, develop, sell model would continue just at a higher scale than the lowest echelons of the market. From a football perspective, the club would have more chance of competing with pot 3 and 4 teams, and using the Parkhead crowd to bridge the gap against pot 1 and 2 teams as we did in not too distant days of old. The outcome of that – more prize money.

Surely the whole point in having money is to pay bills and then to buy better players. If not, why sell? If the purpose of getting £30m for Matt O’Riley is not to use that money to buy a couple of quality players to make Celtic stronger then why are we making these sales?

Two years ago Celtic lines up in the League Cup Final with a midfield trio of Mooy, Hatate and McGregor. O’Riley was on the bench. The front three was Maeda, Kyogo and Jota. Giakoumakis and Abada were at the club that season too. We had a solid defensive pairing of Starfelt and CCV. Since that game the club have seen their bank balance grow to over £100m. Yet the squad is now weaker.

O’Riley, Mooy, Starfelt, Giakoumakis, Jota and Abada have gone. On the wings we have brought in Kuhn, Palma and Yang; none of whom are as good as Jota or Abada. In midfield we have brought in Bernardo, who is not as good as Mooy or O’Riley. Idah comes in up top, it’s arguable as to whether he’s as good as Giakoumakis, while Liam Scales occupies Starfelt’s spot.

£100 – £130m yet no tangible progression. This doesn’t bode well for Europe, and means the perpetual benchmark is simply to finish ahead of a poor Rangers side in domestic competitions, which every bookmaker anticipates us to do year in year out and have done since their previous incarnation went bust.

Where is the ambition for more? Celtic is an iconic club with a name that resonates in Europe for the club’s exploits in the 60s and 70s. There were fleeting moments in the 80s (beating Real Madrid at home and being cheated by Rapid Vienna in the latter stages of the Cup Winners’ Cup), the 90s are well known as a nightmare, then we had Seville and some very respectable group campaigns and runs to the last 16.

Are we to forget Barcelona, Milan, Liverpool and settle for beating Dundee, Ross County and the new Rangers at a canter forevermore?

It’s high time we spent some of our cash, upscaled the selling model and combined domestic success with European progression.

 

About Author

Hailing from an Irish background, I grew up on the English south coast with the good fortune to begin watching Celtic during the Martin O'Neill era. I have written four Celtic books since the age of 19: Our Stories & Our Songs: The Celtic Support, Take Me To Your Paradise: A History Of Celtic-Related Incidents & Events, Walfrid & The Bould Bhoys: Celtic's Founding Fathers, First Season & Early Stars, and The Holy Grounds of Glasgow Celtic: A Guide To Celtic Landmarks & Sites Of Interest. These were previously sold in Waterstones and official Celtic FC stores, and are now available on Amazon.

1 Comment

  1. I don’t agree with this scottish press and most pundits we are in spl not a great but we are in champions league we won’t win it cause you spend big the wages are going to smash through your structure and you can’t have a dressing room with players or player earning twice as much as a player on the same team not on we had a club in this city who chased an impossible dream when epl teams were banned from Europe thought this is there chance to equal there city rivals to win the top compition in European club football it ruined them the died in 2012 we know who but as we know they are supposed to survive not in the business world that team is defunct no matter how many times rfc is now rifc cause rfc does not exist in business world and that matters rfc history where transfered to rifc (sevco) except the millions £ they owed to taxman and other business even sevco are barred from legal business table cause of there dogie dealings carpet baggers snake oil salesman that have been in charge since 2012